When I got a first look at Yorick's skills and abilities, I thought he would be a great champ to play - and he is, but now that he's out I am disappointed about the reaction people have towards him, and also by the way people play him. When he came out a lot of people would dodge queue as soon as someone had chosen him. People would curse in the chat box so that a player would change his champion. I Thought to myself, "He couldn't possibly be that bad, could he?" I finally managed to start some games with Yorick on my team, as well as the other team. I was shocked at how bad every Yorick would do in each game. Costing either our team a loss or the other team a loss. That's when I chose to give him a try, and I have to say, he is a viable champ if you have the patience to learn to play him.

Update July, 8, 2011
Looks like Yorick has gotten a major buff from the recent patch. His base mana cost of his spells has been reduced so grabbing a Meki Pendant at the start isn't necessary, but is still a viable option as it combines to make Manamune. Yorick's ghouls and revenants no longer decay over time. Also, Yorick's base movement speed has been increased so that should make chasing down champions a breeze.

Pros:

Harasser early game
Great burst damage
Good at fighting 1v1
Can be a very useful champ
Good farmer


Cons:

Can be low on mana early game
Not having spells up can easily get you defeated
Doesn't have any ONE great skill
if not built exactly right, he can be the worst champ in the game

Greater Mark of Desolation

Greater Mark of Desolation.
Armor Penetration is always good on a AD champion and is the best choice here.



Greater Seal of Clarity.
These will help you with Yorick's early game, as he is very mana reliant, and can be low on mana quite often in a game.



Greater Glyph of Focus.
I prefer to use cooldown glyphs because when paired up with the cooldown masteries, Yorick can use his spells more often and that will compliment his bursting abilities.

Greater Glyph of Warding. Also a viable choice for survivability.




Greater Quintessence of Swiftness.
Yorick is somewhat on the slow side. This extra boost along with the speed masteries will help Yorick to always catch up to running champions as well as escape from them.

Other possible choices are:

Greater Quintessence of Desolation Greater Quintessence of Desolation.

Greater Quintessence of Fortitude.

I prefer to use the 9/0/21 mastery tree. This is because i feel that Yorick could use some more mana regen. Cooldowns will also help Yorick burst and spam his spells repeatedly. The 15% magic penetration from will also pair up well with Omen of Pestilence and Omen of Famine, as both deal magic damage.

Meki Pendant and two Health Potions are the first two items you want to grab. The Pendant will help you with your low mana early game and will eventually build into a Manamune, which will give you an awesome boost to your damage output. When you have 945g go back and buy a Tear of Goddess and Boots. When you've finally have Manamune and Mercury's Treads buy a Giant's Belt or a Phage for some extra health and continue the build in this following order:

Sheen and then into a Trinity Force
Sheen/Trinity force is a must on any AD champion that relies on spells to dish out damage.

Warmog's Armor
This will give you a LOT of hp and help to keep you alive for longer. Most players will get intimidated by the amount of hp and won't target you during team fights. This will give you time to repeatedly burst your spells at the other teams squishy carries.

Atma's Impaler
With all the above items, you have a **** load of health now. Use this to your advantage and buy yourself this. It will give you a generous boost to your damage and the armor and critical chance is nice too.

SIXTH ITEM. A last item is always a situational choice. Here are some possible choices:

Guardian Angel is a great choice for giving you some survivability in a game with two different damage outputs (magic and physical).

Force of Nature is an item you should grab if the other team has a lot of magic damage. It also give some movement speed which paired up with all the other movement bonus', should make you a very fast champion.

Banshee's Veil or Quicksilver Sash are both good if the other team is throwing out a lot of CC

Thornmail is a good choice if you are up against a lot of AD champions

Items You Should Not Get:
ANY ABILITY POWER BASED ITEMS WHATSOEVER. Yorick does not have any spells that scale with AP so what's the point.

Here are the three i recommend:

Exhaust good for getting those quick runners and shutting down those carries.
Ignite great compliment to your burst damage and useful against champs such as Fiddlesticks and Swain
Flash awesome spell for getting in and out of situations quickly.

Other good choices:
Teleport to get back in a lane quickly so you're not missing exp or good for protecting the tower your teammates left alone.
Heal for that extra hp when you need it.
Cleanse if you hate CC a lot.
Clarity if you tend to run out of mana a lot.

Yorick is a very unique champion because he summons ghouls with his skills. If combo'd together Yorick burst a **** load of damage. Each Ghoul does 35% of Yoricks damage, and his ult, at level 3, makes a revenant that deals 100% of his damage. This means your ghouls together are doing 105% of your damage. If you combo all your skills together you are doing more than 3x your attack damage for 5 secs. That's a lot more than critting.


Omen of War is a great skill because you it summons your strongest ghoul and it has an AD ratio or 1:1. If a champion is running back in a lane you can use this skill on an enemy minion to give you that burst of speed to catch them. I max this skill last because the damage boost per level isn't as great as the his other skills and the 1:1 ratio makes up for it.


Omen of Pestilence is your average AoE slow that also summons a ghoul that slows enemies around it.


Omen of Famine is your best harassing skill and is a great way to keep yourself healed. It'll help you stay in a lane longer for you to farm as well as harass your opponent. I prefer to max this skill first as i use it much more often.


Omen of Death is awesome skill that creates a copy of an ally with 50/70/100% of that allies attack damage. Many people often hate on this skill because it doesn't revive people like Zilean's ult or it doesn't create an exact copy like Shaco's ult. I think this ult is perfectly fine and it is incredibly helpful to your entire team.

(PASSIVE)
Yorick's passive is what makes Yorick....Yorick. His ghouls do 35% of his damage and if you have all of his summons out (including your ult revenant) its adds up to a total of 20% bonus damage...nice. He also takes 5% reduced damage for each ghoul present, adding up to 20% if all his skills are used.

Early Game
Early game you want to put your first point into Omen of Famine because it is your greatest harassing tool. While last hitting creeps, make sure to use Omen of Famine on the enemy champion. Most of the time players will back up until the ghoul is gone or they kill it. This makes them miss out on some creeps, and the skill also helps you stay in lane as it heals you too. At level 2 grab yourself Omen of Pestilence and pair it up with Omen of Famine. With those two skills you can harass champions like crazy.

By the time you're are level 6 you should be able to 1v1 champions really well. Just spam all your skills and ignite if you think you need to and that should burst a **** load of damage. Because of your cooldown reduction you'll be able to hit up some more of your skills if the enemy champion is still alive.


Mid Game
Around this time you should be dominating your lane, and having hopefully destroyed the enemy turret. You can use this time to farm minions, steal buffs, jungle, or gank other lanes. PLEASE make sure you don't forget about your own tower. It really pisses me off when someone leaves there lanes to have it lose a tower and get pushed all the way to the inner turrets.


Late Game
This is where you should be close to finishing your build, and team fights are happening all the time. You should stick close to your team most of the time to prevent ganks that lead to your team being down 1 or 2 guys


TEAM FIGHTS
Team fights are where Yorick is golden. Do not initiate a fight. Let your tank do that. When the fight starts you want to use Omen of Death, but not on yourself use it on your strongest AD allied champion. If you are the strongest champion go ahead use it on yourself. This can make a team fight feel like its 6v5. DO NOT USE your ult at the end just to extend your life; it is a waste. During a team fight you want to spam your skills as much as possible. Start with Omen of Famine then Omen of Pestilence and finally get into the middle of that fight and use Omen of War.

There are many ways to play Yorick, but I feel using this build and following my strategy can benefit your entire team. Yorick is NOT a carry, he can be, but there a far superior champions to choose for that role. Yorick is also NOT a tank. You can make him tanky, but you won't be able to disable and push around a team the way a tank should. All in all Yorick should be a bruiser type champion. He should be able to burst a lot of damage as well as take some damage himself. Please read the guide and use the build before voting and commenting. This is my first guide and hopefully not my last :D...enjoy.